Proofreading

[Seadog777]

If you want to read professionally edited stories, then buy a fucking book.

Don't come on an amateur internet website (which this is) expecting to read Shakespeare.

Things will always slip through any editing program. Doesn't matter how much your proofread it.

Just enjoy the escape from reality.

I didn't think this was a hard concept to grasp

 

[TadOverdon]

I self-edit, using tools to assist, not replace my own understanding, and try not to become too dependent upon them.

I do a rolling edit, then one or two final read-throughs.

And I make mistakes, occasionally doozies.

 

[Seadog777]

I self-edit, using tools to assist, not replace my own understanding, and try not to become too dependent upon them.

I do a rolling edit, then one or two final read-throughs.

And I make mistakes, occasionally doozies.

Exactly.
At least for me, mistakes do not take away from the story at all.
It happens.

 

[Voboy]

I want my stories to be MINE. So nobody touches them but me, and I don't bother with grammar checks or proofing. I reckon the more "tweaking" I do to a story, the further it gets from what I actually intended to write. So for better or for worse, I don't really change anything except in the interests of continuity. Once it's on the page, it's 99.9% likely to stay there.

I do edit as I go, mildly, but that's always in the moment.

 

[ElectricBlue]

If you want to read professionally edited stories, then buy a fucking book.

Don't come on an amateur internet website (which this is) expecting to read Shakespeare.

One can always make a decent attempt at producing good quality text, though. Too many writers just don't bother, don't make much effort at all, then wonder why their stories get pounded.

The good news is, you can usually tell the effort made within the first couple of hundred words, and leave quietly, not waste your time (or in Simon's case, waist your time).

 

[Djmac1031]

This approach works for me, but having read these threads over the years, I think I'm unusual. I don't plan or outline stories either - pure pantser, me.

You're not entirely alone.

I start with a concept, yes. Sometimes I know the full story going in but most times, it's utterly seat of the pants, stream of consciousness writing.

The closest I've come to an outline is for my Jenna Arrangement series, where I made a list of story ideas and events I wanted to happen as it went on and how I'd get there.

And sometimes during an unfinished story I'll jot down quick notes on ideas for where it's going before I take a break from writing.

But that's about it.

 

[Djmac1031]

In all honesty, if I run across a story so badly littered with grammer errors and typos, I simply don't bother to finish reading it.

Nor do I rate it. I'm not here to insult or diminish others attempts at writing. Who am I to judge how and why they write the way they do?

That said, editing and proofreading IS important, even on an "amateur" site.

If you don't feel that's true, that's fine. Just know I'm not the only one skipping your stories because you couldn't be bothered to go back and fix things easily fixed.

But I'd never 1 Bomb a story for it.

 

[AWhoopsieDaisy]

Best way to catch errors is to put it away for a week and then re-read it.

 

[Seadog777]

One can always make a decent attempt at producing good quality text, though. Too many writers just don't bother, don't make much effort at all, then wonder why their stories get pounded.

The good news is, you can usually tell the effort made within the first couple of hundred words, and leave quietly, not waste your time (or in Simon's case, waist your time).

The damn "autocorrect" in Microsoft will do that to me sometimes. Microsoft Editor catches those for me. My neighbor is a retired Professor, and she reads my stories as well.

I try to keep my mistakes to a minimum, though I know that a few slip through.

No system is perfect though. You can proofread it and use every software known to man. Mistakes still slip through.

I haven't seen an egregiously mistake riddled story here. I end up getting a chuckle when I see mistakes like Simon mentioned.

 

[Seadog777]

In all honesty, if I run across a story so badly littered with grammer errors and typos, I simply don't bother to finish reading it.

Nor do I rate it. I'm not here to insult or diminish others attempts at writing. Who am I to judge how and why they write the way they do?

That said, editing and proofreading IS important, even on an "amateur" site.

If you don't feel that's true, that's fine. Just know I'm not the only one skipping your stories because you couldn't be bothered to go back and fix things easily fixed.

But I'd never 1 Bomb a story for it.

I haven't seen a story that was just riddled with "grammer" grammar mistakes.

It doesn't take anything away from the story, at least for me. I end up getting a chuckle out of it.

I agree that proofreading and editing is important, my problem is these god damn 's, coming on here wanting to read and expecting Shakespeare.

 

[Djmac1031]

I haven't seen a story that was just riddled with "grammer" grammar mistakes.

Lol. Touche.

 

[Edey]

Best way to catch errors is to put it away for a week and then re-read it.

That's the 100000% truth! Exactly.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I want my stories to be MINE. So nobody touches them but me, and I don't bother with grammar checks or proofing. I reckon the more "tweaking" I do to a story, the further it gets from what I actually intended to write. So for better or for worse, I don't really change anything except in the interests of continuity. Once it's on the page, it's 99.9% likely to stay there.

I do edit as I go, mildly, but that's always in the moment.

I'm with you there. I am fine acting as my own editor and the readers haven't complained yet.

Too many confuse "PROOFREADING" with "EDITING". I don't mind someone reading over my project to point out errors, but the story is mine to tell and I don't want or need anyone to tell me that "The characters should eat before fucking instead of after to make the scene flow better", or similar opinions, especially on a free, amateur site. The readers here wouldn't appreciate a finely edited story any more than another.

There are enough technological solutions to help with the standard proofreading tasks, as well as some of the other manual techniques (reading the story backwards, etc.) to satisfy the needs of the typical reader on Literotica. Unless you have ambitions to also market the story on Amazon or another revenue-generating site, I wouldn't engage an editor.

 

[alohadave]

I'm with you there. I am fine acting as my own editor and the readers haven't complained yet.

Too many confuse "PROOFREADING" with "EDITING". I don't mind someone reading over my project to point out errors, but the story is mine to tell and I don't want or need anyone to tell me that "The characters should eat before fucking instead of after to make the scene flow better", or similar opinions, especially on a free, amateur site. The readers here wouldn't appreciate a finely edited story any more than another.

There are enough technological solutions to help with the standard proofreading tasks, as well as some of the other manual techniques (reading the story backwards, etc.) to satisfy the needs of the typical reader on Literotica. Unless you have ambitions to also market the story on Amazon or another revenue-generating site, I wouldn't engage an editor.

You can tell the editor what you are looking for. There is a difference between structural/developmental editing and line/copy editing.

Structural is concerned with the story overall. Does it work, do scenes make sense, is the progression logical, etc.

Copy editing is a sentence by sentence edit where individual words and sentences are tweaked as needed to improve sentence flow so it reads better.

Proofreading is focused on grammar and punctuation to make sure everything is grammatically correct.

Neither copy editing or proofreading should change the story.

Automated tools are great, and help a lot, but they do not recognize style usage. A good editor will fix mistakes that you become blind to by being a second set of eyes on the story without changing the author's voice.

 

[GrantBricksly]

I want my stories to be MINE. So nobody touches them but me, and I don't bother with grammar checks or proofing. I reckon the more "tweaking" I do to a story, the further it gets from what I actually intended to write. So for better or for worse, I don't really change anything except in the interests of continuity. Once it's on the page, it's 99.9% likely to stay there.

I do edit as I go, mildly, but that's always in the moment.

I get that. This is one of the reason's I have hesitated to use an editor in the past. (though to be more honest, it's be a matter of impatience. I just wanted to get my story published, and didn't want to wait.)

But, like Alohadave says above, you don't have to let someone edit in that way. You can have someone just proofread, to help find spelling/grammatical errors. That's why I let my wife read my stories before I post. I am reeeeeeally bad at over using commas. Like waaaay over using them. And that is something that the spell/grammar check often doesn't pick up on. So I need a fresh set of eyes to come in and read it to check. Plus, every once in a while I'll slip up and use the wrong to, too, two, or there, their, they're. I'll spell it write, but it won't make sence. And grammar checks don't always catch those. They are getting much much better thankfully, but they still miss them from time to time.

And the way I see it, It IS my story. So no matter what any "editor" may say or suggest, in the end, it's up to me what changes I do or don't make to my story. So I can choose to keep the stories integrity intact if I feel the changes they suggest would impact it.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I want my stories to be MINE. So nobody touches them but me, and I don't bother with grammar checks or proofing. I reckon the more "tweaking" I do to a story, the further it gets from what I actually intended to write. So for better or for worse, I don't really change anything except in the interests of continuity. Once it's on the page, it's 99.9% likely to stay there.

I do edit as I go, mildly, but that's always in the moment.

When I wrote and posted my first series last year, the stories were slammed by the ratings and comments. So, I asked two volunteer editors here on LitE to review them after they published. Besides the grammar and spelling errors they found, one editor suggested a change to one story. I replied "the MFC would not behave that way, because that's not in her personality." The editor replied "Well, I don't know that because you haven't built the character."

I took that as constructive criticism to rewrite my series and better build a background for the characters. And I think that feedback has served me better in all other stories I've written since.

 

[GrantBricksly]

When I wrote and posted my first series last year, the stories were slammed by the ratings and comments. So, I asked two volunteer editors here on LitE to review them after they published. Besides the grammar and spelling errors they found, one editor suggested a change to one story. I replied "the MFC would not behave that way, because that's not in her personality." The editor replied "Well, I don't know that because you haven't built the character."

I took that as constructive criticism to rewrite my series and better build a background for the characters. And I think that feedback has served me better in all other stories I've written since.

THAT is the benefit of a fresh unbiased set of eyes on your story.

 

[SimonDoom]

I agree that proofreading and editing is important, my problem is these god damn 's, coming on here wanting to read and expecting Shakespeare.

Let's be real. No member of this forum has EVER said they expect to read Shakespeare here. I cannot recall any contributor in this forum insisting on grammatical perfection for Literotica stories.

Shakespeare wouldn't be an especially good model for grammatical perfection, anyway, because he wasn't grammatically perfect himself. He was first and foremost a poet, and he took a lot of liberties with the way he wrote (a good thing).

The strongest form of the position you are likely to see here at the Author's Forum is that things like grammar, punctuation, style, and spelling matter, and if you want to receive the best possible reception for your stories you would do well to pay attention to these things. That shouldn't be an especially controversial position. It's not arrogant; it's a realistic approach to achieving a positive reception for your stories.

 

[yowser]

A good story should not unnecessarily burden the reader. It's fine to challenge readers at a higher level, but you don't want their attention at their feet, wondering where the next tree-root is to trip them up. You'd rather they were looking at the scenery, alert and interested.

Like a good conversation, a story is a relationship, with two participants. Everything will go much better if the reader is not always nervously watching you speak, worried whether they'll be wincing at a poor word-choice or awkward phrasing. You would like them to concentrate on the grand conversation. A confident story-teller need not be flawless but should be trustable.

Good grammar usage (following consistent rules) lets your reader focus on the 'good stuff' - the things you want to tell them - without worrying about mishaps along the way. It shows you care.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

You can tell the editor what you are looking for. There is a difference between structural/developmental editing and line/copy editing.

Structural is concerned with the story overall. Does it work, do scenes make sense, is the progression logical, etc.

Copy editing is a sentence by sentence edit where individual words and sentences are tweaked as needed to improve sentence flow so it reads better.

Proofreading is focused on grammar and punctuation to make sure everything is grammatically correct.

Neither copy editing or proofreading should change the story.

Automated tools are great, and help a lot, but they do not recognize style usage. A good editor will fix mistakes that you become blind to by being a second set of eyes on the story without changing the author's voice.

I stand by my belief that technological and manual methods exist to satisfy the proofreading and copy editing needs of the vast majority of writers on Literotica.

The other problem with structural editing here is that too many authors submit incomplete works, which diminishes the value that an editor can bring to the overall story. I know that I wouldn't want to provide input on the progression or logical flow of a story based on piecemeal submissions. It would be like trying to guess the dessert while eating the salad.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Well, this subject went sideways fast. I was hoping to exchange self-editing methods but it's degenerated into a discussion on whether we even should, because of one militant mediocratist. (Yep! New word! I called it!)

 

[Seadog777]

Let's be real. No member of this forum has EVER said they expect to read Shakespeare here. I cannot recall any contributor in this forum insisting on grammatical perfection for Literotica stories.

Shakespeare wouldn't be an especially good model for grammatical perfection, anyway, because he wasn't grammatically perfect himself. He was first and foremost a poet, and he took a lot of liberties with the way he wrote (a good thing).

The strongest form of the position you are likely to see here at the Author's Forum is that things like grammar, punctuation, style, and spelling matter, and if you want to receive the best possible reception for your stories you would do well to pay attention to these things. That shouldn't be an especially controversial position. It's not arrogant; it's a realistic approach to achieving a positive reception for your stories.

I was using Shakespeare as a reference because he/they (was Shakespeare a single person or collection), are so well known and received.
Personally, I've never read Shakespeare not even in school.
I've agreed multiple times that those things are important. That's why I use Microsoft Editor and have my stories proofread by 2 others besides myself. Things STILL get through because no system is perfect.

 

[Voboy]

Well, this subject went sideways fast. I was hoping to exchange self-editing methods but it's degenerated into a discussion on whether we even should, because of one militant mediocratist. (Yep! New word! I called it!)

If you're talking about me, pray don't: I gave you my method. Edit as you go. You're typing, you're in the zone, and a phrase will not ring true. Go back, change it, then move on.

 

[RejectReality]

I edit as I roll along, tweaking things as improved ideas arise, and fixing errors upon reading back through after any significant break in working on it.

The first step after calling the first draft done is to try to let it sit for at least a couple of days where I'm writing something else to muddy up what I expect to be on the page vs. what's actually there. Second is to read back through it in a radically different font face/size, which changes the position of the words on screen, and can make things jump out at you. Third is running it through grammar programs. Fourth is running it through text to speech.

Thankfully, I once again have an editor/proofreader to pass it along to after that.

Giving it a final read in the preview window is the last step. Lit specific formatting errors and line break glitches caused by moving stuff from Wordperfect to anything else demand that, but the odd margins and font can sometimes cause other errors that have somehow managed to hide through everything else to jump out at the last second.

 

[Rob_Royale]

If you're talking about me, pray don't: I gave you my method. Edit as you go. You're typing, you're in the zone, and a phrase will not ring true. Go back, change it, then move on.

Nope. Not you. Have a good one.